Cross-cultural communication competence is defined as the capacity to be effectively communicative with persons of various cultures and identities. It has become one of the most important issues in economic development since the beginning of globalization. In this paper, the author discusses the optimization of mechanisms of developing cross-cultural communication competence in college English education, using the use of artificial intelligence technology in educational practice. There was a representative of 110 students of W college. Questionnaire surveys were undertaken to gather information on the intercultural communication competence of the students, which was summarized and analyzed to get an overview of the current state of their English intercultural communication abilities. The college English intercultural communication classroom was put into three stages integrating cultural schema theory and making AI technology an operational tool: pre-class motivation, in-class facilitation, and post-class reinforcement. The Welch t-test was used as a verification method of efficacy of the proposed instructional model design. Using AI technology, such a classroom model positively impacts students intercultural communication competencies in four aspects: knowledge, attitude, affect, and behavior (P=0.000<0.05) With this approach, it is possible to obtain practical and efficient strategic references to develop and optimize intercultural communication competency development mechanisms in college English education.
